Even Angels Fall
by Steffauri516
Summary: Sherry and Brago-no doubt a fierce team. But even the strongest people have their limits. When Sherry and Brago are forced to return to Sherry's childhood home, the experience proves to be more revealing than they ever could've imagined. BxS-Chapter 1
1. Prologue, A Season Of Rain

****Even Angels Fall****

By: Steffauri516

6/10/10

___**Synopsis:**___Sherry Belmont was born into a world of privilege, but just about every paradise has it's dark side. While tracking new mamodo around the world, she and Brago somehow end up back in her native France. When she decides the two need a break, Brago reluctantly complies, but neither of them can fathom the truths, horrors, and revelations that will occur when the nearest place to stay is the Belmont Mansion.

**Prologue-A Season of Rain**

Outside of the sleekly polished black limousine, scathing rain and blistering winds roared. At the head of the elegant car, Jii drove in silence, sensing the tension between his two charges in the back. Gazing every-so-often into the rear view mirror to see if anything more had developed.

And tension there was; Sherry, her prim white walking gown was torn to shreds at the bottom and she was missing both of her white riding boots, blood and mud-spattered stockings stood begrudgingly in their place. There was a long, thin scratch scaling down the left side of her porcelain doll-like face, and her hair was tangled and matted, also covered in mud and debris. She sat on the driver's side of the car, as she always did. For whatever reason she'd always felt safest behind the driver. Despite her gnarled appearance, Sherry sat up straight, shoulders firmly parched back and weak arms wrapped gingerly around her partner's spell book, which rested at a slant in the lap of her tattered satin gown.

Brago, sitting to the right of her, was also covered in multiple cuts and bruises, but that didn't bother him. A broken ARM would probably never bother him. So long as he won the battle, tasted the bittersweet taste of near-fatal victory, he was unfazed. However, it was not the physical state of he and his human partner that bothered him so, it was the closeness of that rift between flawless victory and shameful loss that was becoming less and less clear as the battles raged on. He could feel her weakening with each passing step they took.

His piercing eyes darted her way, anger boiling in them as he recounted all of the most recent battles, where the calls had been closest and failure had almost overcome them.

On the other side of the vehicle, Sherry's anger wasn't nearly as noticeable, she almost looked as though she was thinking, calculating their next move. But in reality, she was growing just as weak and tired as Brago had declared she was. It wasn't the miles of hiking or the feeling of her filthy clothes hanging limply from her sweaty body, or even the long, sleepless days and nights he forced her to endure; she'd had plenty of practice in that area. As a child, her mother didn't care how early or late it was, Sherry was forced to practice her piano skills day and night, always without sleep, if she failed time was always added, and there was never a compromise. Brago was much akin to her mother in that area-fierce, determined, demanding, and strict. However, Brago _did _have that faint, glimmer of mercy that she'd never before found in her mother...

"AHHHH!" Sherry yelped in surprise as the limousine abruptly jerked and skidded across the soaked dirt road and smashed right into two of the trees alongside the path.

There was silence.

"Gah...B-Brago! Are you okay!" Sherry patted her head with trembling hands, to check for any blood-she was fine. Next to her, Brago had hit his head hard on the window next to him, the trees were on his side. "Brago..." Sherry repeated softly, reaching out to touch the bloody gash on his pale forehead. Suddenly his reflexes sprang back to life. "AH!" Brago swatted Sherry's arm back, emitting an loud, audible _"SMACK!" _Sherry's expression turned cross once more and she rubbed the red mark on her forearm. "Wonderful...I'm glad you're alright." She said sharply as Jii exited the car and ripped Sherry's door open.

"Miss Sherry! Are you hurt!" He asked feverishly, looking her up and down to check for wounds. "No, I'm fine." Her voice was still deadpan from shock, but other than that she was fine. The pair turned their attention to the wrecked car, Brago pulled himself out and the three took shelter beneath one of the towering dogwood trees alongside the path. Before gathering with the rest of the small group, Sherry rushed back to the car and seized Brago's spell book, wrapping it with care in her lavender silk jacket.

Jii took a small cellular phone from the front pocket of his jacket, staring at the front and side of the limo. "Oh...what a mess..." Was all he could emit before someone on the other line answered. "You're going to have to get over yourself sometime..." Sherry spat in an agitated whisper, Brago just stared her down, cross armed and brooding as usual. "A tow truck will be here momentarily, Miss. In the mean time, I suggest we find somewhere to wait out this storm..." Jii suggested, walking back to the wreckage to pull a plain, gray-black umbrella from the glove compartment; he popped it open and returned to the side of his young mistress. "Here you are, Miss Sherry." He held the shade over her already soaking wet head, nonetheless she smiled and walked with him, Brago in tow.

The group looked around studiously, although the torrential rain was heavily impairing their vision, they could see enough that there were no buildings in sight. "Where do you suggest we go? The last town we came across was MILES away..." Sherry said, almost on cue, the three found themselves standing before an elegant wrought-iron gate settled in between two towering stone pillars. The trio gathered closer to the dirty golden plaque placed on the center of the right pillar. It was Jii who first noticed the all too familiar Belmont family crest soldered into it.

"Oh...these people won't take us in, let's just wait it out back in the car...it's better than nothing after all." Jii said rushingly as he pulled away, leaving Sherry out in the rain once more, curious as to why her help wanted to leave in such a hurry.

"Oh come now, Jii! Do you want to sit in a crushed pile of metal and glass, or at least ASK these people if we can have a room for the night? After all, I do still hold connections with various-" It was then that Sherry's leader-like attitude faded away quickly, and she stared in silence at the old iron gates with their familiar floral pattern, the familiar golden plaque she could never stand high enough to see properly as a child, and the old dirt road with the dogwood trees planted on either side of one another, each one exactly three feet from the other.

She remembered, home.

Yes, I suppose you _could _count this as chapter 1, but I just wanted to get this quick explanitory prologue out of the way _ haha, chapter 1 will be up soon :)

Reviews, comments and suggestions please 3


	2. Chapter 1, No Safe Place

**Chapter 1- No Safe Place **

Sherry was aghast at what she was seeing. In the car, she had thought that the path, though barely visible looked familiar, but hundreds of town-entryways had tree-laden paths almost identical to this. There was just no way.

She felt a sudden warmth and hold on her arm. "Miss Sherry...I understand if...if you want to turn back..." Jii said comfortingly, trying to get her to return to her spot under the umbrella. "No...no, let's just, let's just keep going, I'm sure in this weather we won't even get a tow truck out here until tomorrow..." Sherry decided. There was a lump in her throat, and her shaky arms began to throb with nervousness. As she approached the gate and pressed the button on the tiny speaker, her stomach lurched, she actually felt like crying. She never thought she'd have to return here again until she was ready...she was far from ready.

"_BEEEEEEP!" _The speaker wailed until an actual human voice came to cease it; one of the security cameras above the gate whirred and came to life as it turned and zoomed in on Sherry. "Who is it?" The guard asked crudely, Sherry looked up into the camera, disregarding her filthy appearance. "Be gone! Haven't you heard once already! Beggars aren't welcome here! So leave before I inform the authorities!" He spat, Sherry turned back to the speaker and addressed the guard, with much more vigor than a lady should. "You listen here! It's me! Young Madame Sherry Cecile Belmont! Open the gates this INSTANT!" She shouted back. There was a long pause before the guard responded. "OH! M-My lady...no one here expected you back for-" Sherry turned the speaker off and the gates swung open.

She looked at the ground and placed one foot before the other, slowly like a baby taking its first steps into the unknown.

As the group scaled the tall hill that led up the the lavish Belmont Mansion, Brago stared upward at it's might and old-world splendor.

"_Heh, so, this is where the human girl hails from...No wonder she's so spoiled and weak!" _He guffawed to himself. Somehow Sherry must've known exactly what he was just thinking, when she turned around to check on him, the glare she sent his was way less than desirable.

After a few short minutes, which seemed like an eternity in such dreadful weather, the trio reached the elegant, stained glass doors that led to the main foyer of the house, Sherry placed the spell book, wrapped in her jacket, close to her heart as Jii opened the doors. Sherry's piercing sapphire eyes were briefly blinded as light flooded the dank outside world...when they opened again fully, everything was the same. The white marble floors were flawless and polished as they had been everyday, the towering windows had matching emerald green velvet drapes, trimmed with gold fronds all tucked to the side and tied just-so.

As Jii closed the door a maid crossed the foyer halfway with a basket of fresh linens at hand, she paused, wide eyed in shock at what she saw. placing the basket on the floor, she greeted them all with deep bows.

"OH! Forgive me, Madame, if I had known you were due to return I would've had the others and myself see to our chores much more promptly! We'll get to them straight away!" The old maid declared, Sherry smiled through the grime that covered her. "No Margaret, there's really no need, we'll just be staying here for one night." Sherry smiled, Margaret bowed again slowly, her elderly back quivering slightly from so many years of doing so. "My...just look at you, a mess. How on Earth did you get in such a state, my lady!" Margaret asked in shock, although not as much shock as she encountered when she caught sight of Brago. "AGH! What...what IS that THING!" The old maid screeched. "Oh fret not, Margaret. This is Master Brago, one of the Madame's friends from...from abroad." Jii lied quickly. "My...what strange attire for ANY part of the world, I say..." Margaret whispered, when suddenly there came the echo of footsteps.

"Maggie, Margaret...whoever you are, who is down there? I thought all of the other servants were in their quarters for the night...it's nearly eleven." The voice that spoke was sharp, obviously feminine, and very commanding. Silence. "Margaret, answer me!" The voice called, sharper this time.

They all glared upward to the elegant open stairway to see a tall thin forma emerge from the dark corner. Her face was pale, thin, and very pointed at the chin and cheekbones, her eyes were a strange she of blue-green, and she wore bright red lipstick on her turned, unhappy lips. Her long wavy auburn hair was tied into a partial bun at the center-back of her head while the rest fell freely down to her rail thin waist. She wore an old fashioned floor-length nightgown with a very wide, low-dropping collar that hung off of one of her jolted shoulders.

Sherry turned to Jii expectingly. "Jii...I thought you told me she had left!" She shot at him in a whisper, Jii merely looked to the floor, as did Margaret, Brago however, stared right up at the glowering woman. "Aunt Caroline..." Sherry whispered, her face was also turned towards the perfect marble floors, now soiled by her entry.

"Sherry..." Caroline Revel, her late mother's younger sister spoke nonchalantly from the stairs. "...a true lady NEVER bows her head when in the presence of one of her own social status...like a servant." She spoke eloquently, but sharply slurred the word "servant" as she spoke. Slowly and unwillingly, Sherry turned her head upward, Caroline was closer this time, standing on one of the middle stairs, smirking down at them.

Sherry's only known aunt, Caroline Revel was a sister of her mother, six years younger. She never had any children, and she never married. She fell into the Belmont family fortune by accident or, by "hoax", when Sherry was born, her father Gregory Belmont III, put the will in her name...for everything. The mansion, the family heirlooms, even the servants. However, Sherry's mother, Marie Revel-Belmont passed away when Sherry was barely fifteen-three years too young to legally inherit anything in her father's will. Early on in her pregnancy, Marie had requested to list her younger sister as a secondary heiress to the family's fortune, Gregory complied. He was an only child of the sixth generation of Belmonts, he had no siblings or other children to add, but he had always assumed that Caroline's succession in the will would never come to pass.

"Yes...yes aunt Caroline, please forgive me..." Sherry spoke with clenched fists and anger in her eyes.

"So, why have you come back here? Answer me, you insufferable child..." Caroline demanded softly. "Well '_madame'_ this IS my home after all...where else would I go?" Sherry asked snobbishly, trying to play Caroline's nerves as she'd always wanted to do. Up on the stairs, Caroline's expression hardened. "Yes...you are eighteen now, aren't you? Well then...it's very late, I am going to head in, you know where your room is. Goodnight." She finished, with the sweep of her long nightgown against the marble stairs, she was gone from sight. Sherry was still baffled.

"Shall...shall I take you to your room, Mada-Miss?" Margaret asked, Sherry walked ahead of her in silence, Brago started to follow, but was led away by Jii, who escorted him to the guest quarters on the second level. "This way, Master Brago..." "Hmmm..." Brago grunted to show he had heard him. As they scaled the dimly lit halls, Brago stared upwards at either side of the walls, which were covered in portraits of past Belmonts, all of them were as stiff and emotionless as those before them. Mentally he charted their names and generations.

"_Drake Belmont I, 1851-1932...Benjamin Belmont VI, 1895-1966...Myrtle Belmont II, 1900-1939...Anna-Claire Belmont, 1954-1990...Marie Revel-Belmont, 1971-2007..."_ "Here we are, Master Brago." Jii interrupted, pushing open a pristine white door and flipping on the light switch. For a guest room, even in a wealthy person's home, it was EXTREMELY posh. At the head of the room, a king-sized bed, laden with blue silk sheets sat perched atop a mahogany platform; there was an immense walk in closet, bare except for several boxes whose contents were unknown. The bathroom itself was large enough to be a bedroom in an average home, and four towering windows, drapes drawn for the night, lines the vast space. "Is there anything you'll need?" Jii asked dutifully before the young mamodo turned to face him. "Get out..." Was all he had to say before Jii bowed, closing the door as he departed, leaving Brago to ponder the next plan of attack.

Upstairs, Margaret had taken Sherry's old clothes and thrown them away. "Those rags are FAR beyond mending's help now..." She said, holding a bright red towel out for Sherry who had just stepped out of a hot bath. Margaret smiled, she had been a servant to the Belmonts for over fifty years. She had watched Sherry's father grown up, get married, Sherry's birth, the family crumbling, the sadness...the sorrow...the things that went on in silence that no one would ever forget.

Sherry stood and took the towel from her, she was over a foot taller than the old woman, but remembered when she used to ask Margaret when she would grow to be as tall as her. She stared in the gold-rimmed mirror, fogged over with steam. She was home, but the place itself felt as obscured and unfamiliar as her faded image looked in that mirror, there was almost nothing positive she could recall here. "Thank you Margaret, I won't need you to escort me..." Sherry said as Margaret bowed at her lady's exit.

Sherry scaled the dark hallway corridors in silence, at the very end of one wide hall, there stood a pair of ornate white and pink doors with gilded handles. Alongside each door were two thin, white marble pillars. When she looked to the floor, she could see where the plush navy blue berber carpet in the hall gave way to the polished ivory marble of the room ahead. A small chain held the two faded gold handles together, and the weight of a heavy padlock down the center forced it to droop. Sherry remembered the day that this was put there. When her mother had sealed off her bedroom, her own little world, she put the key on the top of the doorframe. Back then it seemed like it would take a miracle for her to reach it, but now all it took was standing on tiptoes slightly and raising one hand. The doorframe's top was coated in dust, but there it was, the key slid down in between Sherry's fingers and she opened the lock, letting it fall to the carpet, barely making a noise.

She pushed the doors open, hiding behind one cautiously as if a bomb were about to go off inside. Turning on the light switch, a pang of nostalgia overcame her. Everything was the same, the room in its entirety was virgin to any human's touch for over eight years now. To any other eighteen year old who re-entered their childhood room, the area would be hideous, embarrassing, immature and childish. To Sherry it was anything but...She saw the same beauty and happiness as she had when she was a child.

In the beginning, Sherry's mother had given her the world, anything and everything she wanted was hers. A golden child. An angel in her eyes. The room itself _was _childish, but very posh and expensive for someone of her age.

The floors were all white marble, on both sides of the room, rows of high, rounded windows lined the room, covered by pinkish red drapes trimmed with white silk fringes and floral embroidery along the top valances. In the center of the room there was an ornate, floral rug, on top of which sat an elegantly crafted tea table and matching chairs. Three porcelain dolls in silk and velveteen gowns sat, their wide glass eyes fixated on the bare seat at the head of the table where she once sat. In front of that, pressed against the wall was a tiered platform covered in fabric of the same pinkish red color as the drapes, on top of that was the bed, a sight to see indeed! An expertly carved white-wooden canopy bed covered in pillows and plush pink comforters and sheets. On either side of the bed there were matching nightstands, also white, with matching little lamps perched on top each one. The lamp closest to the side where she slept had its shade cocked just so the light shined on her side; before her mother's teaching methods became so extreme, she was just assigned to read three passages from a certain book before bed each night. There were doors on each side of the bed, one was her own personal bathroom-everything was pristine and white, the faucets were all trimmed in gold and the towels were pink, monogrammed with the letters SCB, for "Sherry Cecile Belmont", and the second door was a closet. Inside were hundreds and hundreds of adorable little outfits, mostly dresses, even as a child Sherry was never a pants-person. These clothes she loved so much were forbidden to her after the "incident"...Sherry sat down on the tiered bed-platform, and wept.

She had missed out on so much, because people held her back...to hurt her. People blamed her for things she couldn't have possibly done, to weaken her. But they didn't know...they didn't know, how much everything they had done, had only made her stronger.

Moments later, Brago emerged, bitter much much calmer than before. "Sherry...Get up, NOW." He spoke harshly, she stared up at him through teary eyes. "B-Brago?" "Come on, if you aren't going to take some of that rest you're always whining about, then you should come discuss your next plan of action with me." Brago suggested, although it sounded much more like a demand.

"N..no, we'll do that tomorrow, I've got to get back to my room, it's very late." Sherry said, excusing herself from the area. "Then whose room is this?" Brago asked curiously. "Mine." Was all Sherry could muster as she swept from the area, Brago paced the room, looking it up and down, stopping every so often to gaze back up at the pink-crystal chandelier, glittering with light. _"Humph...she's got some damned expensive tastes...So one room wasn't enough for her? That figures, even on the occasions where she does prove herself a strong fighter, she's still nothing more than a spoiled child." _ Brago mused as he followed Sherry's lead an headed back to his room.

Another level up, Sherry sat in her new room. It wasn't _nearly _as glamourous as her childhood abode, but it did the job. The floors in here were the same shade of gray-blue as the hallway, there were two windows, plain navy blue drapes closed for the night-no silk fringe or embroidery. And the bed was four poster, but just plain mahogany, no elegant white carvings or tiered pedestal. But it still had its own bathroom and wide, walk-in closets. She was given this room when she turned fifteen...when her aunt arrived. It was the only birthday present she received that year, but it sure as hell beat the presents she received the four years prior to that...Nothing.

Her aunt Caroline gave her this room because it was directly down the hall from hers, she could keep a diligent eye on her. The subpar room Sherry's mother had forced her to move into when she was ten was a filthy little storage hovel in the attic of the mansion, with bars aligning the windows. No bed, no bathroom, no closets, no nothing. But it was adjacent to the servant's quarters, where Sherry could talk to her 'friends', there was barely a punishment in that.

Sherry remembered being locked in her room every night when aunt Caroline moved in, it was only in the mornings, or when she felt like it that she was allowed out. That is, until the day she turned eighteen, and gave herself the gift of freedom, and left.

Sherry looked to the plain wooden night table, where Brago's spell book lay drying from the pouring rain, and as she settled in for the night, she contemplated the battles to come.

Yay :) Chapter 2 should be up in a few days, or when I get time to complete it, hope you enjoyed this one. The next one will go more in depth to Sherry's past with Caroline and her parents, so yea!

Reviews, comments and suggestions are appreciated :3 3


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